image: Garde del Avante. Sauvage signature collection skull ring.

All Hallow’s is only weeks away and I gotta admit – it’s my favourite time of the year. Yes, that is correct; I like dead people more than Santa Clause. Which is strange because St. Nick is usually packing Vuitton…

Back in 1998, I remember spending the entire night in my mother’s bed watching the Nagano Olympics after seeing The Exorcist at Yorkdale with my friends. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always romanticized witches and goblins, because they fucking scare the living daylights out of me. It’s like if I make them into little cartoon characters that go around calling my boyfriend a pumpkin, they (and he) will no longer torment me. In 2005 I slept with the light on for an entire year (yes, 365 days) due to a nightmare I had in which I was possessed by the devil; coincidentally, the nightmare occurred after a long day studying for my exam on Dante’s Inferno. I know, I have huge issues.

So when all ya’ll naysayers look down on skull iconography in fashion as being so OVER I get to reclaim a symbol I’ve always been obsessed with. Take that! Or don’t. I’m unsure as to whether you naysayers even exist; the people still seem to be wearing skulls season after season… enough already! Why can’t I just be the only one? As I come to terms with having to share my skulls with every other fashion blogger and most people who get dressed in the morning, it would be unfair to give in to my initial impulse when I saw Garde del Avante‘s super spooky Halloween ’11 collection of skull jewelry. That impulse, by the way, had nothing to do with telling the whole world about these pieces – just to be clear.

image: Garde del Avante. I don’t know if this one has a name but I like to call it “The Devil’s Rosary” aka “Blasphemy”. You see? I could do this all day, just to avoid the night.

The above piece is called the Chaotic Necklace, but it sure looks like a rosary to me. I love when Halloween symbolism gets all religious. As if doing the sign of the cross is going to make that oblong shadow in the south west corner of your room you sometimes wish you were certain was a tromp l’oeil the interior decorator put in to make the room appear bigger than it is, disappear. I’ve now come to the strange realization that the only one who’s going to have a nightmare after reading this blog post is me.

image: Garde del Avante. Monsters.

But the days when Madonna’s Like A Prayer music video could get you in trouble with the Pope are over. For god’s sake, Kate Middleton, the closest thing to a would-be QUEEN got married in McQUEEN – a designer label that carries all kinds of eerie connotations from skulls to suicide. The boogie man has become inconspicuous. Instead we wear Giuseppe Zannotti diamond encrusted skull flip flops and claim our biggest fear is what happens to Snookie tonight on J-Shore and/or Snookie. Maybe I’ve thrown pop culture to the wolves this week but constantly being bombarded with Halloween pop-up stores; Vampires and their diaries; $500 silk scarves with skulls on them; his and her Stodden and Hutchison costumes; Lady Gaga; and 1001 horror movie remakes, has taken the spook out of eeeeee. I mean, there really was a time there in my childhood when Bette Midler and Danny DeVito actually managed to scare me. Having confessed my track record earlier I doubt any of you find that hard to believe.

It’s not at all strange, then, that I should prefer Halloween to any other holiday precisely because I fear it the most. Although the Easter Bunny can be a bit daunting at times, you don’t see Karl Lagerfeld putting cadbury eggs and rabbits on his lambskins. Instead we present and re-present the symbols that scare us the most so as to absolve them of evil connotations. Once upon a time a skull used to only mean death; nowadays it usually means you can’t afford it.

All the jewellery pieces are available at Ukamaku.com or click on this link: http://gardedelavante.com

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